


give a little, get a little

by loveleee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mild Smut, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:34:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21811507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleee/pseuds/loveleee
Summary: Jughead rubs the back of his neck. “I guess taking the backroads is out of the question.”“Definitely out of the question.” Betty clasps her hands together so she won’t clench them into fists in front of him. “I think we’re stuck here until things clear up.”(Betty, Jughead, a snowstorm, an empty college dorm, and three beds.Howwill they stay warm?)
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 65
Kudos: 339
Collections: 6th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees, Home for the HoliDale





	give a little, get a little

**Author's Note:**

> because the world needed another winter tropes bughead fic?

With only two words left to write before the official end of Betty Cooper’s first semester at college, her blue ballpoint pen runs out of ink mid-stroke.

She pauses. This had happened once in high school. Then, she’d remained frozen in her seat for five minutes before deciding the teacher probably wouldn’t give her an automatic F for getting up to ask for a spare.

Now, the only other people in the room are two of Betty’s classmates and the professor’s assistant, an imperious twentysomething named Evelyn who will probably demand to know why Betty hadn’t brought her own spare pen as a back-up.

_You are not Riverdale Betty_ , she reminds herself as she scratches out the last few letters, hoping it’ll be enough to get her point across. _Here, you’re College Betty._

The mantra she’s been repeating in her head since orientation day helps. But it doesn’t change the fact that when Betty leaves the classroom, the sight that greets her could be a photo torn from one of her old Riverdale High yearbooks.

Jughead Jones looks up from where he’s sitting against the opposite wall, a novel open in his lap. “All done?”

“You didn’t have to wait,” she tells him as he tucks the book into his messenger bag. He’d been one of the first to turn in his final exam booklet for Philosophy 101, at least thirty minutes ago.

Jughead shrugs, pulling a pair of threadbare gloves out of his coat pocket. “I thought we’d stand a better chance of making it back to the dorms if we went together. It’s like The Day After Tomorrow out there.”

He’s only slightly exaggerating: it takes them three tries just to push the front door of the building open. They’re both too bundled up to talk to one another over the howling wind, so they trudge through the gathering snow back to Stonewall Hall in silence, leaving Betty to her thoughts.

At first, she had been a little apprehensive about offering Jughead a ride back to Riverdale for winter break. It was a three-hour drive to their hometown even in light traffic, and she’d never spent that much time with Jughead alone before.

But she knew it was the right thing to do. She had a car and he didn’t, and they were both stuck on campus until Friday afternoon thanks to Professor Evernever scheduling their exam for the last possible time slot.

Still, it was never a given that they’d reach this level of comfort with one another. Back in the fall, Betty had harbored a tiny seed of resentment that a boy she’d known since the age of six was not only attending the same small liberal arts college that she was, but living in the same co-ed dormitory _and_ taking the same introductory philosophy course to help fulfill his gen ed requirement. So much for making a “fresh start.”

Yet there were some things about Betty that were simply elemental to her nature, and one of them was that she’d immediately felt guilty for feeling irritated. Jughead had the right to attend whatever school he wanted, and take whatever classes he wanted, and that was that.

Any worries she’d had about him dissipated over the weeks, as it turned out their circles didn’t overlap very much. Their interactions were mostly limited to philosophy class, study sessions, and the occasional meal together in the dining hall. She’d run into him at a party once, but mostly left him alone; he’d seemed annoyed by her open surprise that he was there at all, let alone drinking a beer.

It hadn’t occurred to her until the next morning that maybe her presence made Jughead feel constrained by his past, too.

Sometimes she finds herself wishing that they hung out together more. Back in high school, the only thing that had really connected them was their mutual affection for Archie Andrews. But she now knows that she and Jughead share much more in common than a childhood best friend: an appreciation for classic cinema…a love for reading…an interest in true crime…and an unquenchable longing for Pop’s burgers and shakes, which have no equivalent in this tiny college town they’re both temporarily calling home.

Most of all, he’s fun to talk to. She likes to imagine that he thinks the same of her.

The trek back to the dorms takes twice as long as usual, and once they’ve wrestled the door open and made it inside, the front desk is empty. Whoever was on duty must have skipped out early to beat the storm. Betty unwraps her scarf from the lower half of her face. “Meet back here in five?”

Jughead nods and heads for the south wing, leaving wet, slushy footprints on the carpet behind him. Betty takes the elevator up to the third floor.

As she’s opening the door to her room, her phone buzzes in her coat pocket. Probably her mom, demanding to know whether she’s on the road yet.

Betty reads the text, and slumps onto her bed with a groan.

“Fuck.”

The door to Jughead’s room swings open after her third knock.

“Sorry, I couldn’t find this book I wanted to bring with me and I forgot that I’d already put it in my bag –” Jughead stops short and looks at Betty. She hadn’t bothered to take off her winter coat before heading downstairs to find him. “You’re packing light.”

“Bad news.” She leans against the doorframe, trying to look much more casual about it than she feels. “I just got a text alert that they shut down Route 11.”

“Shit.” Jughead rubs the back of his neck. “I guess taking the backroads is out of the question.”

“Definitely out of the question.” Betty clasps her hands together so she won’t clench them into fists in front of him. “I think we’re stuck here until things clear up.”

Jughead sighs, though he doesn’t appear to be all that upset about it. “Thanks, Professor Evernever.”

Betty smiles a little, some of the tension draining from her shoulders. There’s something about Jughead’s presence that calms her. Probably the familiarity. “How do you think you did on the test?”

He makes a face. “Mmm…okay. Pretty good, I think, except for that last essay question. Did I miss class the day we covered the ethics of organ harvesting?”

Betty laughs, fiddling with the zipper of her coat. “I was kind of surprised you turned it in so fast.”

Jughead tilts his head. “Why?”

“Well…you know.” She raises an eyebrow. “You usually have a lot to say.”

In one of their earliest classes together, she’d nearly fallen out of her seat when Jughead had been the first student to raise a hand and voice his (rather long-winded) opinion on the reading. Riverdale Jughead sat in the last row of desks, with a pair of headphones dangling around his neck. He kept his head down and his mouth shut. College Jughead is another animal altogether.

And right now, College Jughead’s mouth is curling up into a smile that strikes a very different chord in her than Riverdale Jughead’s ever had. Because -- as she’s been noticing more and more lately -- College Jughead is also kind of attractive.

“Betty Cooper,” he says, pressing a hand to his heart. “Are you saying I’m _that guy_ in philosophy class?”

She smiles back, hyperaware that what they’re doing right now could be considered flirting. _Does Jughead flirt?_ Four months ago she would have laughed at that question, but she’s honestly not sure anymore.

More importantly: does she _want_ him to?

“I’m not saying anything of the sort.”

“You wound me.” Jughead flops into his desk chair and taps his feet on the floor a few times before asking, “Hey, do you want to hang out? I think we’re literally the only two people left in the building.”

Betty had pictured herself delivering the news to Jughead and then retreating to the coziness of her room, where her Getflix queue and a luxurious cashmere throw blanket – her Christmas gift from her roommate, Veronica – awaited her. But he’s right. Stonewall is deserted and, frankly, creepy without the usual hustle and bustle of student life within its walls.

And maybe she can tease out this flirting thing a bit more. The thought sends an unexpected flutter through her stomach.

“Sure.” Stepping fully into the room as she shrugs off her coat, Betty notices that there are more beds crammed into Jughead’s room than usual: two bunked beds, plus a third by the door. “I don’t think I knew you were in a triple.”

“Yeah, the dreaded triple.” He leans across the desk and picks up a scrambled Rubik’s cube off of a small stack of books. “It’s not as bad as you’d think. And it’s cheaper, which is nice.”

Betty sits on the edge of the neatly-made bed nearest the door. “Do you like your roommates?”

“They’re okay. At least they don’t snore like Archie.”

A little over a year ago, when Betty had walked across her front lawn one morning to Archie’s driveway so he could drive her to school, Jughead had already been slouched in the backseat, munching on a blueberry Pop Tart. He was there in the backseat every day after that right up until graduation.

Neither Archie nor Jughead had ever talked about it directly with her; they’d all just acted like it was normal. But Betty knew that Jughead’s mother had left town the summer before, taking his little sister with her. She also knew that his father had been sent to prison on some kind of drug-related charges in the fall, because it was all that her mother had been able to talk about at the dinner table for at least a week.

She realizes now that she doesn’t actually know where _home_ is for Jughead this winter break: Archie’s house, or Sunnyside Trailer Park, where he’d lived with his dad before moving in with the Andrews.

“You know what’s awkward, though?” Jughead pauses, fiddling with the cube in his lap. “I think they’re secretly hooking up.”

Betty scans the room, as though a random sock or pair of underwear might serve as evidence. “Really? Why?”

“There’s kind of a vibe.” He shrugs. “I keep coming home and finding a tie on the doorknob, and then when I come back later and it’s gone, they’re both already in here.”

“That could just be a coincidence.”

“Well, yeah, maybe. It’s not like I’m going to set up a secret camera to catch them in the act or something.” At her look, he laughs. “I kind of wish they’d just be open about it. I’m not a homophobe. And then they could at least give me a heads up when I need to steer clear of the room.”

“Maybe they’re still figuring things out.” Betty watches him play with the cube for a few moments more, then leans forward and holds out her hand. “Here. Give it to me.”

Jughead blinks up at her in surprise, but hands it over. “Why?”

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“What, are you an expert or something?”

“Or something,” she says lightly.

Steepling his fingers beneath his chin, Jughead watches as she solves the cube in a few minutes. Not her best time, but not bad. Betty tosses it back to him with a smug smile.

Jughead turns it over in his hands, impressed. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

“My dad taught me. He thought it was good for teaching discipline.”

“Maybe you can teach me sometime.”

He sounds almost...suggestive, which is not a word she’d normally associate with a Rubik’s cube, nor with Jughead Jones in general. She raises an eyebrow. “It took me weeks.”

“I’ve got time.”

Sitting up straight, Betty lets out a little gasp. “Oh, shit.”

Jughead straightens up, too. “What?”

Betty squeezes her eyes shut. “I forgot to call my parents.”

Alice Cooper is, predictably, furious.

However, one of the many useful things Betty has learned in her first semester of college is that the world won’t end if she hangs up on her mother. So that’s what she does.

She’d taken the call in the hallway outside Jughead’s room, but she can tell from the look on his face when she comes back inside that he’d at least been able to hear her side of it.

He closes the book in his lap, folding the corner of the page to mark his place. “Everything okay?”

Betty nods. She collapses again onto the bed by the door, curling up on her side this time, using her coat as a pillow.

“She’s upset because my sister’s boyfriend is proposing to her on Christmas Eve, and now I’m going to be late.”

“That’s three days from now.” Jughead cranes his neck around to look out the window. The snow is still falling, though not as hard as before. “You think we’ll be here for _three days_?”

“No, but there’s this very elaborate series of events he has planned, and I guess I was supposed to kick things off tomorrow morning.” Betty rolls her eyes. “It’s so unnecessary. She’s going to say yes no matter what.”

Jughead sets his book aside. “Isn’t your sister dating Jason Blossom? He’s got the richest family in Riverdale. Of course she’s going to say yes.”

Betty narrows her eyes. “My sister’s not a gold digger. She just has bad taste in men.”

Jughead laughs. “So you don’t like him?”

“I barely know him,” she admits. “She hangs out with Cheryl all the time, but he’s never really made an effort to get to know me.”

“His loss.”

Betty feels a blush bloom across her cheeks as she traces her finger along the seam of the bed’s navy blue comforter. “I need a distraction. Do you want to watch something? Or play a game, maybe?”

“Kevin has a bunch of board games he’s always trying to get me to play.” Jughead gestures towards a pile of boxes peeking out from the bottom of the closet.

Grateful for the chance to hide her face, Betty slips off of the bed and crouches down, peering into the closet. The boxes are all covered in words like _pandemic_ and _horror_ and _haunted_. She pushes the clothes aside, but there’s nothing else in there but dust.

“These seem really…dark. Hasn’t he heard of, like, Scrabble?”

Jughead leans back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head as he yawns. “I’d say let’s watch a movie, but I think Moose took our Roku stick home with him.”

For one wild second she considers asking him if he’s interested in _another_ kind of distraction, but she brushes the thought off quickly. She must already be going stir crazy.

“We can go up to my room.” Betty sits back on her heels. “Veronica got us a smart TV, and she subscribes to basically everything.”

Jughead lets out a low whistle as he follows Betty into her dorm room. “Is that a _glamourgé egg_?”

“It’s a reproduction,” Betty assures him, tapping her fingernail against the hollow, gilded egg. “Veronica thinks it’s a good decoy if our room ever gets robbed.”

“Weird.” Jughead picks up the corner of the furry blanket folded at the foot of Veronica’s bed, holding it at arm’s length. “Please tell me this isn’t real.”

Betty shrugs. She’s never asked about that one. She’s worried she won’t like the answer.

They settle onto Betty’s bed side by side, pulling her own cozy, woolen blanket over their legs with what she notes is a small but respectable distance between them. They bicker over movie selections before settling on The Nightmare Before Christmas, which they both agree is a fair compromise between Betty’s desire for something overtly Christmassy, and Jughead’s desire for something weird.

They’re halfway through the movie, and Betty’s halfway to nodding off, when a strange, low growling sound startles her. It takes her a second to realize it’s Jughead’s stomach.

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” he admits.

Normally Betty and Veronica kept their room well-stocked with treats, but they’d cleared most of it out over the last week in preparation for winter break. “We have instant ramen. It’s not great, it’s kind of salty, but –”

“Nope, that’s perfect,” Jughead interrupts. “Let’s do it.”

They pause the movie and eat the ramen cross-legged on Betty’s bed. It feels strange, to be doing with Jughead what she’d normally be doing with Veronica or one of her other friends who lives on the floor – watching movies, eating junk food. But it also feels comfortable, like they should have been doing this all along.

Jughead finishes his first cup in about thirty seconds. While he’s waiting for his second to heat up in the microwave, he eyes Betty as she slurps her noodles one by one. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here watching you eat like that.”

She grins. “I started doing it because my mom _hated_ it.”

“What a rebel.” His smile is warm, but a touch concerned. “Your mom is really strict.”

“That’s one word for it. Another is ‘psychotic.’” Betty points her fork at him. “I can’t help but notice that you don’t seem particularly upset about our delayed return to Riverdale, either.”

The microwave beeps. Jughead turns to retrieve his cup, but not before she sees his face fall. “I’m not a big holiday person.”

“No?” She nudges him with her foot, an attempt to bring the smile back. “Are you a grinch, Jughead Jones?”

“I don’t know.” Jughead settles back onto the bed, staring down into his cup as he stirs the noodles. “It’s just going to be kind of weird this year.”

When he looks up, she looks right back, her stomach swooping as they lock eyes. His irises are pretty: gray, or maybe blue, or maybe both. He has those long, thick eyelashes that only boys ever seem to have.

Some part of her understands that they’re standing on the edge of a line, and this is her moment to either cross it, or back away for good.

_College Betty_ , she reminds herself.

She asks him, “Because of your dad?”

Jughead drops his gaze to his hands. “He’s on parole, and supposedly he’s attending some kind of AA program, but…” He shrugs. “Archie and his dad invited me to stay with them, and I said yes.”

“Their house is really nice at Christmas,” she says softly.

Even after the divorce, Archie’s dad had continued to go all out for the holiday season: draping the house in miles of multicolored lights, hanging stockings for himself and Archie and Vegas by the fireplace, buying the biggest tree possible that would still fit through the front door. If it smelled like cookies in Archie’s house, it was because Fred Andrews had just baked a fresh batch, and not because he’d plugged in a gingerbread-scented air freshener like Alice Cooper did next door.

“Yeah, it is.” Jughead nods slowly. “I just feel guilty, I guess.”

“Why?”

“Because I get to be _here_ all the time now.” He gestures vaguely around the room. “No one in my family has ever even gone to college.”

Betty frowns. “I’m sure he’s proud of you for that, Jughead. It’s an accomplishment.”

“Sure. But now it’s time to go home and I’m not even really going home.” He runs a tired hand down his face. “I _could_. I’m choosing not to.”

“I wish I could choose not to.” She mutters it without thinking, and feels instantly terrible. “I’m sorry. This isn’t about me.”

And as unbearable as life with Alice Cooper can get, it is not, in fact, _unbearable_. That’s the difference between her life and Jughead’s. They both know it.

“At least we’ll both be ringing in the new year at Archie’s,” she says.

Jughead groans, slumping back against the wall. “Don’t remind me.”

“You’re practically his co-host now.”

He snorts. “That’s funny coming from someone who said seeing me at a party was like…what was the analogy you used? Seeing Cheryl Blossom in a thrift store?”

Betty cringes. She had convinced herself that he didn’t remember their encounter at the house party back in September. Her night had ended with her head in a toilet and only a vague recollection of what she’d said to Jughead; apparently, his memory had served him better.

“That was shitty,” she admits. “Whatever I said to you, I really am sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He meets her eyes again and gives her a small, shy smile. “Mostly I was embarrassed that the prettiest girl in the room came to talk to me, and it was just to tell everyone what a loser I was in high school.”

Betty skips right over the compliment she has no idea what to do with, and shakes her head firmly. “You weren’t a loser.”

“Right.” He waves his hand. “Nerd is the preferred term.”

“Stop.” She bumps her knee against his. “I never thought you were a nerd, or a loser. I was just drunk and stupid and surprised to see you. I thought you didn’t drink.”

“I didn’t in high school.” Jughead leans over the foot of the bed and drops his second noodle cup, which is somehow already empty, into the trash can.

“What changed?”

“We’re getting pretty deep here, Cooper.” He rubs the back of his neck, fingers catching against the edge of the woolen beanie he still wears every day, inside or out, rain or shine. “I guess…in Riverdale, I always felt like I was defined by who my parents were. Maybe not to you,” he concedes, catching her eye. “But to my teachers, definitely. Other people, other kids’ parents.

“When I got here…obviously, no one knows my dad here. But if I keep making decisions based on _his_ behavior, then I’m just defining myself by him anyway.”

Jughead runs the woolen fringe of the blanket idly through his fingers. For a moment Betty images them tangling in her own hair, pulling aside the neck of her sweater, tracing along the slope of her chin...

He claps his hands over his knees, the movement startling her out of her own head. “My dad is an alcoholic,” Jughead says flatly. “Maybe I’ve inherited that, maybe not. But I decided as long as I’m here I should just do what I feel comfortable with and stop worrying about what it _means_.”

A lump forms in Betty’s throat. “Sometimes I feel like everything I do is just in reaction to my mom,” she admits. “Even when it’s the opposite of what she’d want me to do. _Especially_ then.”

“Like noodle slurping.”

She gives him a weak, fleeting smile. “It’s like…even when I think I’m making my own choices, I’m not. Like I don’t know how to be a person outside of her.”

“I think that’s why it’s good that we’re here.” Jughead settles back against the wall again, letting his head rest against the beige cinderblock. “It’s such a cliché, but this is where we’re supposed to figure it out.”

When he turns to face her, his hat catches against the wall and slides back a little, letting a lock of dark, wavy hair escape over his forehead. Betty feels an almost painful urge to reach out and touch it.

Instead she slips her hand beneath her thigh, pressing her palm against the bedspread.

“Figure out what?”

Jughead smiles. “How to be people.”

By the time the end credits roll on Jack and Sally’s embrace, Betty is shivering.

She looks at Jughead, startled to see he’s curled into the same exact position that she is: knees bent up beneath his chin, arms wrapped around his shins.

“It’s freezing in here,” she says. “Do you think they turned off the heat for break?”

“Turned _off_ the heat? No.” Jughead rests his cheek against his knee to look at her. “The pipes would freeze. But maybe they turned it down?”

Either way, they agree, it’s both miserably cold and getting late. The only real solution is to cozy up in bed and go to sleep.

A part of her longs to ask him to stay. If anything is going to happen between the two of them, tonight is the night: stranded in a snowstorm, the only two living souls on campus. It’s like something out of a Hallmark movie.

But he’s already bent over, tying his shoelaces. The possibility of sleeping with her probably hasn’t even occurred to him. And what if he says no? What if all the flirty quips and shy glances are just his way of settling in to his new, College Jughead self, and nothing more?

If Jughead’s wrestling with similar thoughts, he doesn’t show it. He gathers his phone and his wallet and stops in the doorway with a little wave. “Thanks. This was nice.”

Betty pulls her sleeves down to cover her chilly fingers. “Anytime.”

It’s his cue to leave, the last word before the cut to black. But instead, Jughead takes a deep breath. “Also.”

His voice cracks; his eyes drop down to the floor. Betty feels suddenly lightheaded.

Maybe she’s got it all wrong.

Heart racing, she takes a half step closer. “What?”

Jughead looks up at her again, but whatever thought he’s on the verge of expressing dies before it can leave his lips. His hand lands gently on the doorknob. “Nothing, just – nevermind. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The automatic lock on the door clicks softly behind him.

Mind whirling, Betty tries to distract herself with a search for some flannel pajamas. Her warmest, fuzziest pjs are already packed beneath layers of clothes in her suitcase, and all she can find in Veronica’s dresser is silk, satin, and scraps of lace. In the end she pulls on a thin pair of cotton pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt that will have to suffice, then dives back under the covers.

Curled up in as tight of a shivering ball as she can manage, she squeezes her eyes shut, and forces herself to start counting sheep.

About fifteen minutes later, Betty gives in to reality: it’s too cold to sleep like this.

And even if it weren’t, her brain can’t stop buzzing long enough for her body to relax, replaying those last moments with Jughead on an endless loop.

If there’s even the slightest chance that he’s lying in bed right now thinking about her the way she’s thinking about him...she’d be an idiot not to do something about it.

Teeth chattering, she wraps herself tightly in her cashmere blanket, slips on her sneakers, and heads down to the ground floor.

When he opens the door, her eyes go straight to Jughead’s messy, dark hair. “You’re not wearing your hat,” she blurts out.

He rubs his head self-consciously, half-hiding a yawn behind his arm. She feels a twinge of disappointment; all signs suggest that he was asleep, not wide awake as visions of Betty danced through his head. “I don’t _sleep_ in it. Are you okay?”

“I can’t fall asleep,” she says, tugging the blanket around herself more snugly. “It’s too cold in my room. Can I stay here?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He steps back, gesturing vaguely around the room. “I don’t know which bed you wanna sleep in, though, they could be having sex in either one, so…kind of a gamble...”

Betty holds back a deep, deep sigh. He’s not going to make this easy on her. “I was thinking maybe I could sleep in your bed. With you.”

That suggestion appears to wake him up. Jughead blinks rapidly, crossing his arms over his chest. “ _Oh._ You mean –”

“For body heat,” she clarifies, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “It’s way too cold to sleep alone. I had three blankets over me and I couldn’t stop shivering.”

He nods. “Right. Sure. That’s...yeah, okay. Come on up.”

Jughead climbs up into the top bunk first. Betty tosses her blanket up after him and then follows.

When she slips beneath the covers, she understands immediately why Jughead had no trouble falling asleep himself. She almost moans in relief. “You’re like a furnace,” she says, and without really thinking about it, curls up against Jughead’s side.

His body tenses beneath her touch, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead he shifts against the pillows, moving his arm to curve around her shoulders in a loose embrace. “That’s a little comfier, I think,” he says quietly.

Betty hums in agreement. “Thanks.”

Her body aligns itself to his in its search for warmth: her knee slotting between his legs, her arm laying across his stomach, her head resting against his shoulder. She feels like a koala clinging to a tree branch.

But beneath her cheek she can feel his heart pounding. She wonders if he can feel the frantic beat of her own. Betty bites her lip, then asks, “Is this weird?”

Jughead laughs a little, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Uh…maybe? But it’s better than freezing to death.”

“That’s true.”

They lay in silence for a few minutes. Betty can already tell that although she’s no longer shivering, sleep will continue to elude her. If the low hum of energy she can feel radiating off of him is any indication, Jughead’s in the same boat.

Perhaps, she decides, some light conversation will ease the tension. “I like your hair,” she says.

“Thanks.” Jughead adds, “I like yours too.”

Betty bites her lower lip. She’s not sure he really grasped the intent behind her compliment. “I meant I liked seeing it without your hat covering it up, though. You see mine all the time.”

“Not like this,” Jughead points out. “You usually wear it in a ponytail.”

She’s strangely pleased by the thought that he’d know that, even though it’s been her go-to hairstyle since kindergarten.

“I like your ponytail too,” he continues. “It’s just cool to see it different.”

Though the room is lit only by moonlight, and too dark for him to see, Betty hides her smile against his shoulder.

Jughead clears his throat. “Do you like it here?”

“Yes,” she says. “It’s very cozy.”

There’s a pause. Jughead sounds amused when he says, “I meant like, here at school, not…”

“Oh.” She’s surprised to feel only a flicker of embarrassment. But she’s already invited herself into his bed and wrapped her body around him like a heat-seeking python; of course she _likes_ it.

“I love it here,” Betty says honestly. “Do you?”

His arm tightens around her almost imperceptibly. She can feel him exhale against the crown of her head, the warm ghost of his breath gone in an instant.

“I didn’t want to,” he says. “But I think I do.”

Eventually Betty’s eyelids begin to feel heavy, and her breathing slows. Jughead is soft in some places, hard in others, but all of him is deliciously warm.

She’s just about to slip over the edge into sleep when he shifts against her, and something firm presses into her stomach.

Her eyes fly open, suddenly wide awake.

The slow rise and fall of his chest suggests Jughead is also on the verge of sleep, if not already there. Riverdale Betty would do her best to ignore this. She’d gingerly put a few inches of space between them, get a couple hours of restless sleep, and then go about her day pretending it had never happened.

_You are not Riverdale Betty_ , she reminds herself _._

And maybe she’s not “College Betty”, either. Maybe she’s just...Betty. And that can mean whatever she wants. She can _want_ whomever she wants. Right now, that’s the man beside her.

Betty slips her hand off of his chest and cups her palm against the front of Jughead’s pajama pants.

She feels him twitch against her hand as the rest of him wakes up, only to freeze an instant later. His lips smack together softly as he realizes what’s happening.

“Oh. Betty. Um –”

She doesn’t say anything, but presses against him more firmly, letting her fingers curl around the shape of him.

He exhales a long, shuddering breath, and moves his hips just a fraction closer to her. Betty moves her hand down, then up, rubbing him slowly through the layers of fabric.

Jughead makes a noise in the back of his throat, his arm flexing beneath her neck as his fingers press into her shoulder.

She strokes him like that a few more times and then moves her hand to the waistband of his pants. She hesitates.

“Is this weird?” Her words are hushed this time.

He says, “I don’t care,” voice catching on the last word. It sets something alight within her. Betty slips her hand into his pants and wraps her hand around him, tension coiling low in her belly as he tilts up into her touch.

His skin is so _soft._ And so hot, even hotter than the rest of him. She pumps him a few times and then uses her free hand to tug his pants further down over his thighs, giving her more room to maneuver.

“Betty. _Fuck_.” Her name sounds startlingly loud when he says it without the usual background noise of the dorms, and she can’t help but giggle.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she assures him, and then licks her palm before taking him in her grasp again, biting her lower lip as he moans against her temple.

Her wrist starts to ache after another minute or so, but it’s nothing compared to the sounds he’s making, or the feel of him pulsing in her grip. This isn’t the first time she’s done this, but it’s the first time that doing it has actually felt…well, sexy.

Jughead shifts abruptly, propping himself up on one elbow as his hand cups the back of her head. Betty slows her movements, and he presses his forehead against hers with a sigh.

“Betty, can I,” he stumbles as she runs her thumb over his tip, “can I kiss you?”

She doesn’t even have to think about it. “Yes.”

His lips crush against hers, hot and insistent. Desperate. Like he’s been starving, and only Betty can sate him. She kisses back eagerly, swallowing his moan.

Jughead pulls back first, breathing heavily as his fingers tangle in her hair. A shiver runs through her when he meets her eyes. She’s never seen so much raw _want_ in someone’s face before.

Betty starts to stroke him again, faster this time, with greater intent. She wants – needs – to make him come.

When he does, it’s with a strangled groan that Betty feels ripple through her whole body.

After he cups her face in his hands and kisses her again, slow and careful and deep. The last kiss – their first kiss – had felt like a release, or an explosion. This one feels more like exploration. His nose brushes against hers sweetly when it ends.

“Thank you,” he says.

_You’re welcome_ seems like a strange thing to say, so she smiles instead.

“Do you want…can I...?” His fingers find her hipbone, dipping first beneath the hem of her shirt, then the waist of her pajama pants.

Her hips cant towards him in answer to the question he can’t quite bring himself to ask. “You can touch me.”

Jughead kisses her again as together they wriggle her sleep pants down past her knees. His thumb presses gently against the damp cotton of her underwear, the faint pressure light and teasing until he finds the spot that makes her gasp into his mouth.

He presses again, more firmly now, moving his thumb in slow circles against her. Betty’s head falls back against the pillow, exposing her throat.

“Please.” She half-begs, half-demands it; however Jughead interprets it, though, he’s correct, slipping his fingers beneath the fabric to touch her.

“Fuck, Betty,” he murmurs. “Did that turn you on?”

_Yes_ , she mouths, the word swallowed in a sigh, but he’s too busy sucking at her collarbone to see.

Betty comes with two of his fingers crooked inside her. Her back arches off the mattress, mouth stretched open in a wordless cry, and Jughead cradles her close, his hands gentle on her flushed skin.

She’s drowsy in the comedown, nosing against his soft gray t-shirt, trailing her fingers down his torso.

There are a million things she wants to say to him, and she can’t recall a single one.

Betty wakes up to the sound of her phone buzzing.

To her relief, it’s only a text alert, and not an angry wake-up call from her mother. The highway is open again, so as long as they can dig her car out of the parking lot, they can go home today.

It’s early yet, so she drops the phone beside her on the mattress and shuts her eyes, ready to fall back asleep, when she feels movement behind her.

It takes her a moment to center herself, then: _Right._ Jughead. Whose bed she’s lying in. Whose legs are tangled with hers beneath the sheets. Whom she gave a handjob to in the middle of the night, and who then returned the favor.

Who kissed her like it was something he’d been waiting to do all his life.

She can feel his gaze on her before she gathers enough courage to look back over her shoulder. He’s adorably rumpled, his dark hair a wild mess, one cheek still lined from where it pressed against the pillowcase. His eyes are soft and sleepy, with a hint of apprehension that she’s certain is mirrored in her own. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Betty clears her throat. “The roads are open again.”

“Oh.” There’s a note of disappointment in the single word. “Guess we should get going.”

Betty rolls over onto her side so she’s fully facing him. She feels the way she felt last night, eating noodles with him on her bed: like they’re on the precipice of something. “It’s only seven.”

He makes a sound of displeasure, and she smiles; it reminds her of mornings in Archie’s car, grumpy Jughead slumped against the window with his hat tugged down over his brow while she skipped through radio stations until she found a song she liked. He’s never been a morning person.

“D’you want to go back to sleep?” He scratches his cheek, and she wonders what his faint stubble would feel like against her skin.

“I don’t think I can.”

“Me neither,” he admits.

Betty swallows. It would be so easy to back away from this -- to retrace their own footsteps back to what’s familiar. Laugh it off, turn the volume up loud on a podcast all the way home, and wave to each other across the quad for the next three-and-a-half years of college.

The thing is, she doesn’t really want to.

“I think we should talk,” they both say in unison.

Betty’s hand flies to her mouth, smothering a startled laugh. Jughead’s neck is flushed a deep red, but the way he’s looking at her can’t be described as anything other than tender.

“I’ll start,” he says. “I think you’re incredible.”

Her heart sinks. No matter how soft his eyes might be, she’s heard preambles like this before. From Archie, the night of the homecoming dance their junior year. From the boy she’d hooked up with at her first frat party, lying in a bed not unlike this one, but with a lot less clothing. Those words are never followed by anything good.

Betty maintains as neutral an expression as she can. “But?”

Jughead frowns. “But what?”

“But…” Confused, she trails off. “But you don’t like me that way.”

“What?” Jughead’s hand finds her shoulder; even through the fabric of her shirt, she can feel how warm it is. “No, Betty, I _do._ That’s...what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Oh.” She presses a hand to her cheek. “ _Oh_.”

“I’ve been thinking about how to tell you for weeks. But I kept telling myself…I’ll tell her after class is over. I’ll wait until the semester’s over. I’ll wait until we’re back in Riverdale. In case it wasn’t mutual.”

There’s an unspoken question in it that she knows she has to answer before anything else. “I like you too.”

Jughead’s mouth quirks up at the side. “I kind of figured that was the case when you grabbed my --”

“Stop,” Betty whines, blushing furiously, pressing her fingers against his grin. “I don’t normally just _do_ that, okay? I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I’m not complaining.” He takes her wrist and angles it gently, pressing his lips to her palm.

Betty melts against him, letting her eyes fall shut as he threads his fingers through hers.

Jughead squeezes her hand. “So it sounds like we’re on the same page.”

“Mm.” She nods slowly. “Same page.”

“And if neither of us is going back to sleep, but it’s too early to hit the road…”

She smiles, blinking up at him. “It’s getting kind of chilly in here again.”

“Well then.” Jughead rolls her onto her back, hands still linked together over her head. “It’s a good thing I’ve got some practice warming you up.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have read through and tweaked this fic approximately 30 times, and am thoroughly sick of it. But I hope _you_ , dear reader, enjoyed it!
> 
> Thank you to heartunsettledsoul for reminding me that Jughead, much like the guy who plays him, is totally _that guy_ in an undergrad philosophy course.
> 
> Title is from the Maggie Rogers song.
> 
> Comments are deeply appreciated! <3


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